In July 1979, Don Miller, a prisoner already serving time in an Eaton County case, led police into the fields and woods around Lansing, Michigan, to the remains of women who had been missing for months or years. He had already been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl and trying to kill her and her 13-year-old brother in August 1978. Under a plea agreement with the Ingham County prosecutor, he admitted causing the deaths of four women between January 1977 and August 1978, and he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in two of them.
The four women were Martha Sue Young, 19, his former fiancee; Marita Choquette, 27; Wendy Bush, 21; and Kristine Guske Stuart, 30. The agreement spared him a murder trial that prosecutors were not sure they could win, and it added no time to the sentence he was already serving. It has been argued over in the Lansing area ever since. Miller has been refused parole again and again, and in 2022 the case led Michigan to change how often the parole board must review violent offenders.
Miller grew up in a middle-class neighborhood of East Lansing, according to a 1999 CBS News "48 Hours" report. He was a youth minister at his church, studied at Michigan State University and played trombone in the university marching band. CBS Detroit, summarizing the case in 2016, said he had earned a degree in criminal justice at Michigan State, had a girlfriend and played in the band, and that nothing about him drew attention until the 1978 rape. A Michigan psychiatrist who later campaigned to keep him in prison, Frank Ochberg, described him in 2016 as "a very harmless-looking guy." The Lansing State Journal, in a 2016 account of the case, called him "Bible-carrying."
No criminal record before 1977 was reported.
Martha Sue Young was 19, a French student at Michigan State, and a member of Miller's church. The two became engaged in the winter of 1976. A few days before New Year's Eve, she broke off the engagement, though Miller persuaded her to stay friends, CBS reported. On January 1, 1977, she disappeared.
The police suspected Miller from the start, according to CBS, but found no evidence to hold him. Her clothing and purse were found on October 20, 1977, near a lake in Bath Township, the Lansing State Journal reported. Her body was not found.
Her mother later joined a citizens' group that worked to keep Miller in prison, and her sister spoke against his release at parole hearings decades later.
Marita Choquette, 27, worked as an editorial assistant at WKAR-TV, the public television station at Michigan State University. She disappeared on June 15, 1978. A farmer found her body on June 27, 1978, in Alaiedon Township. She had been stabbed to death.
Her death stunned her colleagues. Bob Page, then the station's manager, recalled in 2021 that everybody at WKAR "was not only surprised, but shocked" by the news.
At the time no one was charged. A year later Miller told investigators that he had taken Choquette to breakfast before he killed her. He was never charged with her death.
Wendy Bush, 21, was a junior at Michigan State. She disappeared on June 27, 1978, the same day Marita Choquette's body was found. She had last been seen walking on the Michigan State campus with a tall white man, the Lansing State Journal reported.
Miller later told police that he strangled her in a parking lot on the campus. He led police to her remains in a woodlot in Delta Township in July 1979. He was never charged with her death.
Kristine Guske Stuart, known as Kris, was 30. She was a Port Huron native; a high school friend from there described her in 2016 as "well respected, well loved by the community," and she was working in the Lansing area as a schoolteacher; the Lansing State Journal described her as a science teacher. She was married to Ernest Stuart.
She disappeared in East Lansing on August 14, 1978, while walking home from an auto repair shop. A year later Miller told Judge Robert Holmes Bell that he had struck her with his car because he thought she was Martha Sue Young, and that he had strangled her while she was unconscious, according to the Lansing State Journal. He led police to her remains in a ditch in Olive Township, Clinton County.
Her mother told reporters in 2016, "It's hard, it's very hard."
Two days after Kristine Stuart disappeared, Miller broke into a family home in Delta Township. He attacked a 14-year-old girl there and then her 13-year-old brother, who came in. Both children survived. The girl got out of the house and raised the alarm, and the neighborhood came to help.
Bystanders, among them a 13-year-old girl who stopped to help and an Oldsmobile worker, wrote down the license plate of the car Miller was driving, a brown 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass, and called the police. Miller was arrested later the same day.
WKAR, reporting on the case in 2016, said the children's survival was important in prosecuting him. The brother, who came upon Miller immediately after the assault on his sister, has attended Miller's parole hearings for years to oppose his release.
The Delta Township attack was prosecuted in Eaton County. In May 1979 Miller was convicted of rape and attempted murder and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, according to the Lansing State Journal, CBS and the Associated Press. The Eaton County assistant prosecutor at the time, G. Michael Hocking, later called him "Michigan's version of Ted Bundy."
With good-behavior credit, CBS reported in 1999, the Eaton County sentence would have made him eligible for release after about 20 years.
Meanwhile Ingham County was trying to build murder cases. In February 1979 a county grand jury indicted Miller for second-degree murder in the deaths of Martha Sue Young and Kristine Stuart, the Lansing State Journal reported. Neither woman's body had been found. The indictments never went to trial.
The Ingham County prosecutor, Peter Houk, offered reduced charges in return for Miller's help in finding the women, the Associated Press reported in 2016. There was not enough evidence to charge him in the killings, the AP said. On July 13, 1979, Miller pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, for the deaths of Young and Stuart, in exchange for leading police to their bodies. In Ingham County, Judge Robert Holmes Bell sentenced him to 10 to 15 years, to run at the same time as the Eaton County sentence.
The bargain added no time to what he was already serving, CBS noted.
Miller kept his side of the agreement. Martha Sue Young's remains were found in a park after the plea; Kristine Stuart's were found in the Olive Township ditch.
Three days after the plea, Miller agreed to a further step: a "memory jogging" session with a therapist, a form of regressive psychotherapy, on the condition that he would not be charged in the deaths of Marita Choquette and Wendy Bush, the Lansing State Journal reported. CBS described psychiatrists using the drug sodium amytal in the sessions in which he confessed to all four deaths. In the session he described Wendy Bush's death and led police to her remains in Delta Township. He also gave an account of Marita Choquette's death, whose body had been found the year before.
Later news reports summarize the outcome in slightly different ways. The Associated Press wrote in 2022 that he pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter rather than the four killings he confessed to, because he led authorities to some of the bodies. WILX and Fox 47 wrote that he helped police find the bodies of three of the women. WKAR wrote in 2021 that the 1979 plea resolved the Young and Stuart cases and led authorities to the bodies of Choquette and Bush. The legal result is the same in every version: two manslaughter convictions, and two deaths that he admitted but was never charged with.
In Michigan, a manslaughter conviction is not a murder conviction, and the Choquette and Bush deaths are deaths he admitted, under an agreement that he would not be prosecuted.
Peter Houk, who served as Ingham County prosecutor from 1977 to 1986, remained firm in later years that Miller should stay locked up. "I don't think Donald Miller should ever walk the streets of any city, period," he told the Lansing State Journal in 2016.
The defense saw the case differently. Tom Bengtson, Miller's original attorney, whom the family retained again in 2016, argued that his client had "served his time" and was no longer a threat.
Miller served his sentences in the Michigan prison system. Between 1989 and 1997 he had seven parole hearings, according to the Associated Press. Parole records from those years described him as a quiet and polite inmate who worked on the prison newspaper, the Lansing State Journal reported. A 1993 parole board note, however, called him a "volcano ready to explode." Each time, parole was refused.
In 1997 Frank Ochberg, a Michigan State psychiatry professor and a former associate director of the National Institute of Mental Health, led the founding of the Committee for Community Awareness and Protection to keep Miller in prison. The group included Martha Sue Young's mother and the stepmother of the two children Miller attacked in 1978. Ochberg described Miller as a sadistic psychopath. The committee pressed for a law allowing civil commitment of dangerous offenders at the end of their sentences; it failed.
A member of the citizens' group, going through Miller's prison record, found an incident from 1994, CBS reported. Prison officials at the Kinross Correctional Facility, in Chippewa County in the Upper Peninsula, had taken from his cell an object they believed could be used to strangle someone. The Lansing State Journal described it as a garrote, a strangling device made from a shoestring and barrel buttons. Bob Dutcher, a former Meridian Township police captain who helped build the case, said officials believed Miller had planned to use it on a female corrections officer.
Special prosecutors, Jeff Sauter and Stuart Dunnings III, brought felony charges of possessing a weapon in prison. Miller, his lawyer and his parents argued that the object was an ordinary shoelace. His lawyer kept his earlier crimes out of the trial, and the jury did not hear about them, CBS reported. The jury found that the item was a weapon. A conviction would be his fourth felony, CBS noted, and six weeks after the verdict he was sentenced to 20 to 40 years. Michigan news reports date the conviction to 1998.
The girl Miller had attacked in 1978, by then an adult, attended the sentencing. She said life without parole would have sounded better, CBS reported, but that she would take 20 to 40 years.
The new sentence kept Miller in prison after his earlier terms expired. The 1979 sentences ran concurrently until 2007, WKAR reported, and the weapon conviction is the term he is now serving. The Michigan Department of Corrections gave his maximum discharge date as March 24, 2031.
In 2015 a decision of the Michigan Court of Appeals moved Miller's parole timeline forward, a corrections department spokesman, Chris Gautz, told the Lansing State Journal. His earliest release date had been October 2018. Instead he was due to meet a parole board member in August 2016, his first parole consideration since 1997. He was 61 and held at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility in Jackson, and he declined to be interviewed. If the board granted parole, two judges would also have to approve it: Eaton County Circuit Judge John Maurer and Chippewa County Circuit Judge James Lambros.
The families and officials organized. A high school friend of Kristine Stuart circulated a petition to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Kristine's sister-in-law told WXYZ-TV in Detroit that Miller was "a threat to society." Her parents wrote to the board that "Miller alone is personally responsible for her murder and creating an enormous loss within the family." Attorney General Bill Schuette wrote to the parole board that the details of Miller's crimes were reason enough to keep him in prison, noting that he had strangled three women and stabbed the fourth.
Martha Sue Young's sister told the Lansing State Journal that Miller's controlled life in prison should not lead anyone to believe he would not kill again: "Where he is now, others control his desire or fantasy to kill." Ernest Stuart called Miller "one of the coldest people I've ever seen or met." The girl Miller attacked in 1978 told the newspaper she had forgiven him but did not believe he could be rehabilitated, and that she was "speaking out for the other women who were robbed of their lives." The current Eaton County prosecutor, Doug Lloyd, said he would make sure the board knew about Miller's crimes.
The board denied parole in 2016. A Fox 47 report said he would next be eligible in August 2021.
Ahead of the 2021 review, state and county officials again wrote to the board. On February 2, 2021, Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon wrote to the parole board that she still did not consider Miller suitable for supervision in the community, and that "nothing has changed in these years to change that belief for me," The State News reported. Attorney General Dana Nessel also wrote to the board in early February. She told the Lansing State Journal that Miller was still a "predator" and that his release "will absolutely endanger this community from the moment he steps outside prison walls."
The board interviewed Miller in mid-April 2021. Its decision took about two months, longer than the usual 30 days. In the week of June 10, 2021, the Michigan Department of Corrections confirmed that parole had been denied again, The State News and WILX reported. The State News counted it as his ninth denial.
The brother who survived the 1978 attack had attended each hearing to tell the board how he felt. He told WCMU and WKAR that the decision was "a great relief" and that seeing it in writing meant it was "not a rumor." Under the law then in force, Miller could ask for another review within a year, which left the survivors only a few months between campaigns. The brother told WILX that he "might get the summer" before having to start over. He also said that the 1979 bargain had let Miller "basically" get away with the four killings.
By then Rod Sadler, a retired sergeant of the Eaton County Sheriff's Department, had written "Killing Women," a book on the case. He had reviewed police interviews and court transcripts and interviewed prosecutors and relatives of the victims. He also befriended Miller's father, who believed his son had been rehabilitated, and through him received letters from Miller. In one letter, Sadler told WKAR, Miller described killing Martha Sue Young and three other women. Sadler said his motive for writing was the prospect of Miller's release in 2031: "people have forgotten who Don Miller is, and people have forgotten what Don Miller did."
The survivors pressed the legislature to change the review schedule. A 2018 Michigan law had cut the longest wait between parole reviews, for prisoners denied parole, from five years to one year for those with a high or average probability of release, and to two years for those with a low probability. Supporters of the change called this an unintended result.
House Bills 4562 and 4563, sponsored by Representatives Sarah Lightner and Angela Witwer, both from the Eaton County area, allowed a majority of the 10-member parole board to wait up to five years between reviews in certain circumstances, including when more frequent reviews would cause added harm to victims or their surviving families. Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bills on March 11, 2022, and they took effect at once. House Bill 4562 became Public Act 28 of 2022.
The Associated Press reported that the legislation was spurred by Miller's surviving victims. At the signing, the brother attacked in 1978 said, "Every year, I fear for the safety of my future, the future of my children and the future of our community." The Delta Township representative who knew the family growing up said the old schedule "simply wasn't humane to victims and survivors."
On May 19, 2022, the Eaton County prosecutor's office was notified that the parole board had denied Miller parole again. Prosecutor Douglas R. Lloyd announced the decision the next day and thanked the brother and sister for their efforts to keep Miller in prison. Using the new law, the board set his next parole eligibility five years away, on August 29, 2027. "This extended period of time allows victims time to heal," Lloyd said, adding that it "limits the level of revictimization that occurs with annual parole review." Fox 47 counted it as his tenth denial. Miller was 67.
In May 2022 Miller remained in the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections, serving the sentence for the prison weapon conviction. His next parole eligibility date was August 29, 2027, and his maximum discharge date, if he serves the full term without new convictions, was March 24, 2031.
Each of the four women left family who carried the case for decades. Martha Sue Young's mother joined the effort to keep Miller in prison in the 1990s; her sister spoke against parole in 2016. Kristine Stuart's husband, mother and sister-in-law spoke against parole in 2016, her parents wrote to the board, and a school friend circulated a petition. Marita Choquette's colleagues at WKAR remembered her decades later. The brother and sister who survived the 1978 attack, both children at the time, have taken part in hearing after hearing, and the brother's campaign helped change Michigan parole law in 2022.
Miller's father, by contrast, told Rod Sadler that he believed his son had changed.
How many deaths. Miller admitted four deaths of women in 1977 and 1978. He was convicted of manslaughter in two, Young and Stuart. The other two, Choquette and Bush, are admitted and were never charged. None of the four is a murder conviction.
Other killings. In his letters to Rod Sadler, Miller confessed to three more killings, Sadler told WKAR in 2021. Those deaths were not identified in the reporting, and no charge was reported. They are unproven.
A 2021 complaint. In February 2021 a woman told the Michigan State Police that Miller had attacked and assaulted her in August 1978, The State News and Fox 47 reported. Police were investigating and released few details. No result of that investigation has been made public.
What the plea covered. Reports differ on whether the July 1979 plea itself covered two deaths or all four, and on which bodies Miller found for police. The court record as reported is two counts of manslaughter, for Young and Stuart, with an agreement not to charge him for Choquette and Bush.
The parole count. WILX said in June 2021 that parole had been denied four times; The State News called the June 2021 refusal the ninth, and Fox 47 called the May 2022 refusal the tenth. The difference may reflect how the 1989 to 1997 hearings are counted.
Winter 1976: Miller and Martha Sue Young become engaged; she ends the engagement a few days before New Year's Eve.
January 1, 1977: Martha Sue Young disappears. Police suspect Miller but find no evidence.
October 20, 1977: Her clothing and purse are found in Bath Township.
June 15, 1978: Marita Choquette disappears.
June 27, 1978: Her body is found in Alaiedon Township. Wendy Bush disappears the same day.
August 14, 1978: Kristine Stuart disappears in East Lansing.
August 1978, two days later: Miller attacks a 14-year-old girl and her 13-year-old brother in Delta Township; both survive. He is arrested the same day.
February 1979: Ingham County grand jury indicts him for second-degree murder in the Young and Stuart deaths.
May 1979: Convicted in Eaton County of rape and attempted murder; sentenced to 30 to 50 years.
July 13, 1979: Pleads guilty in Ingham County to two counts of manslaughter; 10 to 15 years, concurrent (Judge Robert Holmes Bell). Leads police to the remains of Young and Stuart.
July 1979: After a therapy session under a no-charge agreement, admits the deaths of Choquette and Bush and leads police to Bush's remains.
1989 to 1997: Seven parole hearings; all denied.
1994: A strangling device made from a shoestring is found in his cell at Kinross Correctional Facility.
1997: Committee for Community Awareness and Protection formed.
1998: Convicted of possessing a weapon in prison; 20 to 40 years.
2007: The 1979 concurrent sentences end, per WKAR; the weapon sentence continues.
2015: A Court of Appeals decision moves his parole timeline forward.
August 2016: Meets a parole board member; parole denied later in 2016.
February 2021: Ingham County prosecutor and the Attorney General write against parole; a woman reports a 1978 assault to the State Police.
June 2021: Parole denied.
March 11, 2022: Governor Whitmer signs House Bills 4562 and 4563.
May 19 to 20, 2022: Parole denied; next eligibility set for August 29, 2027.
March 24, 2031: Maximum discharge date reported by the Department of Corrections.